Complex Numbers (Book)

Blog Calendar

◄ August ► 2021
S	M	T	W	T	F	S
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30	31
Archive				RSS

About This Author

Contact Me

Come closer.

Complex Numbers

Complex Numbers

A complex number is expressed in the standard form a + bi, where a and b are real numbers and i is defined by i^2 = -1 (that is, i is the square root of -1). For example, 3 + 2i is a complex number.

The bi term is often referred to as an imaginary number (though this may be misleading, as it is no more "imaginary" than the symbolic abstractions we know as the "real" numbers). Thus, every complex number has a real part, a, and an imaginary part, bi.

Complex numbers are often represented on a graph known as the "complex plane," where the horizontal axis represents the infinity of real numbers, and the vertical axis represents the infinity of imaginary numbers. Thus, each complex number has a unique representation on the complex plane: some closer to real; others, more imaginary. If a = b, the number is equal parts real and imaginary.

Very simple transformations applied to numbers in the complex plane can lead to fractal structures of enormous intricacy and astonishing beauty.

http://www.ddewey.net/mandelbrot/

Signature for Honorable Mentions in 2018 Quill Awards

A signature for exclusive use of winners at the 2019 Quill Awards

Signature for those who have won a Quill Award at the 2020 Quill Awards

Show Recent Comments

10 Most Recent Blog Comments:

Write_Mikey_Write!

about 2 hours ago
In response to "Global Domination"

A little girl wearing a Hello Kitty shirt in Middle-of-Nowhere, Siberia will certainly make you wonder how it got there. My grandson has a souvenir t-shirt with a Terex 33-19 "Titan" on it. When it was built in 1973, the Titan was the largest, highest payload capacity truck ever built, a title it held for 25 years. The thing is, the truck on that t-shirt is on display in Sparwood, BC, Canada - over 1000 miles from here, and his mom got the shirt at a local thrift store. Makes me wonder.

Oh, yeah - I thought 'Schrödinger's Hello Kitty' was funny, too.

1 Like

Adherennium Plotting something

about 4 hours ago
In response to "Global Domination"

For whatever warped reason, 'Schrödinger's Hello Kitty' has tickled my funny bone.

3 Like

Brandiwyn🎶

Nov 12, 2024 at 10:50am
In response to "Blond Man's Bluff"

That's interesting about the two spellings of blonde. I always thought blonde referred to the person and blond referred to the hair. But I never bothered to look it up, So you've catered to my lazy today.

3 Like

Kåre เลียม Enga

Nov 9, 2024 at 1:02pm
In response to "It Was a Dark and Starry Night"

Ah... but why did he see those swirls when many of us don't? A totally different discussion... out of thin air... which is a frozen fog today when I gaze out the window.

Humans have great skills of observation; some of us extraordinary skills. Is The Scream depictive or evocative? 😱

Turkey DrumStik

Nov 9, 2024 at 11:04am
In response to "It Was a Dark and Starry Night"

Frankly, I'm more surprised to see reasonably good reporting from CNN. I'd given up on their ability to rein in their tendency toward loaded speech.

2 Like

JayNaNoOhNo

Nov 8, 2024 at 12:00pm
In response to "Bungalow Bash"

For the love of God, what did I just read? That is by far the worst use case of a bungalow I've ever seen, and a fundamental misunderstanding of the value of front porches—and the size of bungalows.

Was this his point? Nope, I know what his point was. For a guy so worried about presentation, he certainly undercut his own arguement.

1 Like

Turkey DrumStik

Nov 8, 2024 at 9:47am
In response to "Bungalow Bash"

"People don't change their minds on the internet. They usually do that in books, battlefields, or not at all.

Yeah, that's a little bleak."

Bleak and also inaccurate.

1 Like

Kåre เลียม Enga

Nov 7, 2024 at 10:19pm
In response to "Past and Future Intents"

I must live in the present. In the past I daydreamed a lot... probably to escape the bruises of reality; however, I need to be more aware crossing streets or even how I get out of bed (no rapid movements without thinking of consequences).

I can envision a future more peaceful than the present because this time-and-place isn't the only "present" that's ever existed, and I do try to see the larger view (emphasis on 'try').

1 Like

Lilli 🧿 ☕

Nov 7, 2024 at 10:58am
In response to "Past and Future Intents"

If the aforementioned exercises don't help; there's still liquor.

3 Like

Turkey DrumStik

Nov 6, 2024 at 10:22am
In response to "Lo!"

Not gonna lie I need the holiday season chatter.

August 27, 2021 at 12:02am

#1016209

Psych!

Yesterday was Lower Decks day, so I drank the last of my Romulan Ale (for now) and two Lower Drunks. I'm still feeling it. But I'm still going to blog.

More Is More: The End of Minimalism

Oh, thank the gods. Wait...

Marie Kondo's decluttering dominance is over. Make way for maximalism, where the more stuff, the merrier

So, from one extreme to another? How... American.

Article is from last October, but whatever.

Last January, shortly before the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic, Sotheby’s in New York put together what was supposed to be a modest auction of a dead interior decorator’s things... when he died, in 2018, he left no will, only five storage units and two homes stacked to the ceilings with the types of finds one might imagine belonged to a man who slept on a Chinese four-poster bed crowned by an Ottoman-style dome near columns carved to look like windswept palm trees.

I don't know about you, but I'm going to have that visual stuck in my head all night.

Still... so what?

Still, everyone at the auction seemed to feel the same thing: like a lid had been lifted, revealing years of pent-up desire for the full, the festive, the flagrantly jouissant. “Clearly, there’s a lot of people fed up with monochromatic interiors,” Sotheby’s Dennis Harrington told the Times, “and newly excited by Mario’s maximalist style.”

It's like I've said: just wait. The pendulum will swing back.

I just wish it would spend more time in the middle.

Style is a pendulum, and it likes drama in its swing.

Fuck, I should probably read these things before commenting on them.

...nah.

Over the past year, a new home-related polarization has also erupted online, with several publications pitting the decor styles against each other: “Minimalism Is Dead. Meet Maximalism,” crowed one Vox headline while Harper’s Bazaar asked, “Minimalism vs Maximalism: Which Is More Stylish?”

Look. It seems obvious to me. And probably to anyone with an ounce of awareness. Minimalism simply didn't sell anything; it was about getting rid of stuff, cleansing, buying very little. Its polar opposite? Why, maximalism is like candy for companies. Consumerism run rampant. BUY MORE STUFF.

No wonder they're all trying to shove this "new trend" down our collective throats.

For a few years now, the rooms featured on popular decor sites and the homes of style influencers like Aurora James or Cara Delevingne have been wilfully diverse, drunk on self-expression, and packed with stuff—places where messy bedrooms are displayed as a sign of life rather than a problem to be fixed.

I consider it a point of pride that I have no idea who the hell those people are.

In a consumer culture, minimalism was always a somewhat fancyland ruse. It was domestic anorexia sold as health; materialism repackaged as its opposite; perfectionism hawked as peace. It was the perversion of labelling a home curated down to zero the ultimate luxury or, worse, virtue.

Of course, minimalism has its own problems: if you don't have stuff, what the hell are you going to do?

So I see where this is coming from now. First, sell the public on minimalism: get rid of, as the article notes, "perfectly good stuff." Pare your home down to the bones. Throw everything away; it's all millstones around your neck. Next? Well, we were just kidding. You actually need stuff. Buy it on our website!

This is the usual fashion cycle, writ large. Convince people that the old way was Wrong, and if you buy our stuff, you'll be Right!

I have an idea.

I call it an "idea" but it's how I've lived most of my life.

Buy what you need. Sometimes, buy what you want. Keep it until entropy takes it. Only throw shit away if it's truly useless. You never know when you'll need something.

My ex liked to purge all my stuff. When she left, I had to buy more stuff. I still harbor resentment over that. I miss my old dining table. It was a perfectly good table.

This isn't minimalism. It isn't maximalism. It's... I'd call it utilitarianism, but unfortunately, Ayn Rand destroyed that word for all time.

8 Like • Comment • View 6 comments

© Copyright 2024 Robert Waltz (UN: cathartes02 at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
Robert Waltz has granted InkSpot.Com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.